


Forever Love

by jazzjo



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 04:08:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20324854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzjo/pseuds/jazzjo
Summary: My heart has been borrowed and yours has been blueAll's well that ends well to end up with youor,The one inspired by Lover





	Forever Love

**Author's Note:**

> full disclosure i saw someone mention this on tumblr and wrote this is like twenty minutes

Tobin could sit there for hours. She relished in this – the quiet and almost ethereal realness of this space all their own, strings of colourful lights still hung around the apartment and mistletoe in unsuspecting doorways even though they were due to leave for January camp in a few days.

A home.

In more ways than one. In more ways than just the physical parameters of it, than the furniture arranged just how they wanted it, than every frame on the wall holding a photograph, quote, or piece of art that they chose all on their own. It was a home because it was _theirs_, together, wholly and completely, and it was a home because Christen was home.

They had spent Christmas with the Heaths, just as they had spent Thanksgiving with the Press family. Tobin loved that it was how they thought of it now – not as “Tobin’s family” and “Christen’s family”, but just as their two families. Christen called them the overlap in the Venn diagram, but of course she did, that precious nerd.

After the family-filled festivities of the past couple weeks, the couple had retreated to their own Portland home to close out the year.

They had been so excited to decorate their home, even though they weren’t spending the festive season at home. Tobin drove them to pick out their own tree and they had slowly begun to build their very own collection of Christmas ornaments.

Tobin’s favourite was the one Christen’s parents had gotten them for their very first Christmas as a couple, a carefully painted porcelain landscape of a sunny field, celebrating the summer they had gotten their shit together, so to speak. It had become a tradition of sorts for their families to alternate giving them incongruously summery Christmas ornaments every year on their anniversary, the year always carefully written on the back in black. There was little Tobin wanted more than for their tree to be filled by those summery ornaments, marking a lifetime of summers together.

Curled up on one end of the couch with a book in her hand, Christen looked a marvel to Tobin with her hair curling and free, clad in an old UNC t-shirt (though she had Stanford sweatpants on to “counteract the betrayal”, of course). Tobin could never quite figure her out, not entirely. Christen always carried an enigmatic air about her, even when they fit together so naturally and were so strongly drawn together from the very beginning.

Tobin remembered their first meeting all those years ago at the College Cup Final. Tobin remembered their first camp together on the national team. Tobin remembered their first kiss, their first date, the first time they met each other’s families as partners rather than teammates. Tobin remembered them finding this place and building this home. Always, there was that warmth. That closeness and magnetism that they could never deny.

That woman at the other end of the couch in this place that was only and wholly theirs, she held Tobin’s whole heart. She had from the beginning. Since day one, she had known Tobin in a way no one else did, and she did even now.

Tobin thanked God for Christen every single day. Sometimes multiple times a day. For bringing Christen into her life, for giving them the opportunity to meet time and time again until they surrendered themselves to the pull they felt. For keeping them in each other’s lives through it all.

Through the ups and downs of rosters and tournaments, of wins and losses, of trades and loans.

When Christen had been allocated to Utah, they really sat down to talk about finding a place to close the distance. They’d been following each other back and forth to each person’s apartment in cities too far apart to compromise on, relying on National Team camps and tournaments for fleeting windows of stability and a space that was both of theirs.

And they had loved it. Their relationship had thrived, though bound by the limitations of club and national team seasons as well as roommate situations both on the national team and in shared apartments in their respective cities.

There had never been a place they could both call home at the same time.

But Christen had landed in Portland the month before she had to report to Utah for pre-season, and the words out of her mouth felt inevitable to them both.

“Take me home, Tobin,” Christen had murmured, her arms around Tobin’s neck as they embraced at baggage claim.

By the time Christen was in Utah to train, they had found their home and were almost entirely moved in.

Now, Tobin let her gaze rest on the curve of Christen’s nose and the line of her jaw, marveling at the minute movements of her face as she read the words on the pages in front of her.

“Chris,” Tobin broke the quiet between them gently.

A sharp intake of air followed the lifting of Christen’s head as Tobin took in the vision before her of Christen looking up at her with those warm grey eyes and a quirked half-smile. Even now, Christen took her breath away.

She probably always would.

“I love you,” Tobin finished, leaning over to tuck a curl behind Christen’s ear, “I love our home. I love that it’s just us.”

Christen smiled that smile, the one she always did when they were alone or looking at each other across the room. The soft one, not quite as brilliant as the one that accompanied her goal-scoring ecstatic embrace, but warmer and always, _always_ just for Tobin.

Nothing made Tobin feel luckier than the fact that of all the many, many people who were probably enamoured with Christen Press, she was the one to get to see that smile.

“Sometimes I think about how every cleat to the back, every ball to the face, every season-ending injury in my career has been worth it,” Tobin spoke again, “because they’ve made me the person and player I am today. And for every time I’ve lain on the field when you were there too, even when we play against each other, you’ve always been there, watching to make sure I’ve gotten up. They’ve brought me to you.”

Her body was a testament to her career, an account written in scars of varied size and age, in the lines of her muscles and the build of her frame. Her body was a testament to every step that had brought her closer to Christen and to their relationship.

Melodramatic, perhaps, but it rang so utterly true in Tobin’s head.

The game had been her whole life and had broken her down. She had loved and hated it. It had brought her immense joy and devastating anger. For the longest time she lived and breathed soccer in a way that let her cruise through the rest of her life without a care in the world and no strings to tie her down. Like her heart was on loan to the field and the ball, and everything else had to get by without her heart fully in it.

And then Christen had happened.

Christen, with her heavy heart and struggles with the game herself. With the arduous process of finding herself that often had to take her far away from the US and accompanied her through a string of disappointments that seemed to follow every success.

Christen, with her blinding smile and her endless pursuit of healing. With her patience with herself to find and rebuild the joy that the game brought her, to find a love for and celebration of her own worth.

Christen, with her complete and utter love for Tobin. Who always saved her a seat at team meetings and meals for years because Tobin was constantly running just a sliver late, even when they didn’t room together. Who told shockingly risqué jokes that no one would ever believe Tobin if she tried to tell someone about them. Who was sitting there at the end of the couch in _their_ home, looking at Tobin with nothing but love and some good-natured teasing in her eyes.

The mosaic of scars and marks on Tobin’s body, the product of decades of soccer, were the written proof of the journey that Tobin had taken. The journey that had led her to Christen and to this moment, in this home of their own, with her.

“I love you too, Tobin,” Christen replied, her voice soft, “I love you more than I ever dreamed I could, and I love you more still every day. I’ll love you forever and a day.”

The quiet broke abruptly with a obnoxiously loud, rhythmic rapping on their front door, followed by shouts that gave way to aggressive hushing.

“I’m guessing that’s Kell,” Christen chuckled as Tobin got up.

Walking to the door, Tobin rolled her eyes as she responded, “That’s what we get for inviting friends over for New Years’.”

“At least Becky will keep her in line, even if Mal may encourage her craziness,” Christen said, “And besides, our house, our rules. It’s not like we’re high schoolers with parents to piss off.”

Yeah, this was all Tobin wanted. A home with her forever love.

She had the ring in her dresser drawer to prove it, hopefully tonight.


End file.
